


Prelude

by TheonSugden



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Animal Cruelty, Mentions of Death, Nightmares, Spoilers, mentions of control and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8311939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonSugden/pseuds/TheonSugden
Summary: A short collection leading up to the four stories on the show for their October 2016 stunt week.





	

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” 

“The only thing you’ve ever believed in is yourself, Robert.” 

Robert had never been insulted by a ghost, but there was a first time for everything. 

“Or that’s what you want us all to believe, anyway.” 

He frowned as he sat on the sofa. He’d take insults over astral plane analysis.

He wasn’t really sure exactly where he was sitting. If he had to guess, it was the small place he and Katie had shared with Donna before -

“Before you cheated and lied like you always will.” 

Robert frowned again.

“That’s not fair.” 

There was a laugh, a harsh and mocking sound, but with something he recognized.

“Katie?”

Nothing. 

“If we could just talk.”

That was the last thing he wanted to do. The nightmares had been enough. They were gone now - he’d probably willed them away - but he saw her there all over again, eyes wide open in the basement of a rotting farm.

“Sit down. We can talk.” 

“You really don’t want to see what I look like now, Rob.” 

 _Rob._ Something in him crumpled at the sound of his name, the affection at the edges, buried almost as far down as Katie was. 

“I’ve changed.” 

He’d expected a malevolent laugh, or a shaking table, maybe a broken mirror, but just more silence. 

“You changed for me too. Remember?”

He swallowed, wishing he didn’t remember. 

“I loved you. Do you remember that too?”

He wasn’t lying. He had. He didn’t know when he’d stopped, when it had bled into the hatred and rage he’d felt for her in those hellish last months.

“I remember.” 

There was something sad in the short sentence, something that took him back to the teenage boy who seethed inside because Katie wasn’t just the girl he wanted to nick off his brother - she was…

“Your everything?”

“Yeah,” he allowed, nodding, pain in his chest. 

“Being your everything is a very fatal prospect, Rob.”

The small ache quickly became pure agony, knuckle-white.

“Don’t you touch him!” 

She did laugh that time, and he wished she hadn’t, because it was the most horrible sound he’d ever heard. 

“I’m not going to hurt him. You are, Rob.”

Her last words rung in his ears as he sat bolt up in bed, a sleeping Aaron by his side. 

“ _You always do_.” 

00

James had never been a very happy man. His father, during a blazing row, had once told him, “You’re just like your mother - you’re only happy when you’re miserable.” 

James knew that wasn’t true, but he’d never needed to show the world how cheery he was. That had always been John’s job, John the perfect brother, John everyone loved because he made them smile and laugh. 

Look where it had gotten him. 

James looked out over the fields at Wylie’s Farm, barely tended through years of neglect. They reminded him of his own farm, and all the time he’d wasted. 

He put a hand over his eyes, glancing past a fed-up Emma waiting in the car to see two newcomers on the horizon…with an apathetic terrier. 

When they got close, he quickly recognized Sam Dingle, shotgun over his shoulder, and the Dingle family dog.

“He’d make a fine meal out here,” James muttered, noticing the mature pup’s disdain for him. It really was a Dingle dog. “Thought you’d know this isn’t a safe place for old dears.” 

Sam frowned. 

“Em-Emily wanted to take a walk. Titch can take care o’himself. He’s a good dog.” 

A pang of sympathy rang through James, more for Sam than the mutt giving him a cold staredown. 

“Yeah. Sorry.” 

He looked over to this Emily, a woman he’d probably call mousy. She had long brown hair she repeatedly tucked behind her ears. She looked nervous. He wondered if he’d offended her - he probably had - but he’d used up his apologies for the day. 

“Are you living there?” she finally said, so soft he could barely understand her. 

He looked back at Wylie’s, dark and brooding even in the October sun. 

“Yep.” 

She gave him the most frightening stare he’d ever faced…even compared to Emma or that arsehole Cain. 

“Oh - you mean everything with Andy Sugden’s wife. That’s all done now.”

There was also his stupid, reckless son stupidly and recklessly keeping stolen dogs on the farm, but he’d taken care of that as best he could, finding them their proper homes. He wished he’d done the same with Ross years ago…

“Don’t.” 

For a mousy woman, it was said with pure determination and grit. Enough to make him notice. 

“Are you trying to make an offer?”

She shook her head, the sleeves of her beige cardigan clutched in her slender hands like a lifeline.

“Don’t. Please. Don’t stay here.” 

She turned her back to him, walking back toward the rest of the world at a brisk clip. 

He stared at Sam, his mouth open. Sam looked back at Emily, then at him, leaning forward in a halting whisper. 

“Her…her dad…they lived here. He - he hurt ‘er real bad.” 

James looked down at the ground. 

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what that’s got to do with me.” 

Sam shrugged. 

“Guess I’d best be gettin’ back.”

The dog left a small deposit to show James what he thought of him, and they were off. 

James picked at his fingers, pondering over what the mousy woman had said. More the look on her face, really.

“Who was she?” Emma asked, startling him with a hot thermos cup of tea.

“Jealous?” he teased. 

She clutched at her chest.

“Of course. She’s going to steal my dream husband and our dream mansion right from under me nose.” 

He huddled her close to him, kissing her forehead. 

“Never. I’m a one-man woman.” 

He looked back at the farm now, not able to look her in the eye. 

It was a great place. He’d make sure of that. Someday, possibly, he could have Moira - and of course Adam - help out, maybe even…

No, he couldn’t do that. Not today. 

“I love you, Emma,” he said, hoping she believed it. 

She smiled back at him, sweetly. 

“You’d better.” 

He blamed the chill coursing through him on the cold. 

00

Everything in its place. 

Pierce looked at his wallet. He never let anyone touch his wallet. His mother had given it to him on his eighth birthday. She hadn’t given him many gifts. Most of them had had a meaning. A meaning she’d never let him in on, so he’d just have to guess for himself. 

He kept it hidden away in a drawer - one drawer or another over the years. It was special to him. It had no secrets - he’d never changed his name, or nearly killed people for insurance like that blundering moron Rakesh - but it did have memories. 

His mother. And somewhere in the back of the shot, his father, one of the few photographs he’d ever taken. They were in their fifties, sad and frail but proud and strong, and Pierce, he was about 15, maybe 16. His new camera. Another gift from his mother. No explanation given. 

They’d died before he was 25, and he’d worked, and worked, and gone to the gym, and worked…until Tess. 

She was the second photo. The last holiday they’d gone on - to Nice. It had been a surprise. She’d been a little reluctant to go, but when they were there, it was like the old days again. For him, anyway, so probably for her too.

She was still so beautiful. Paddy couldn’t soil a photograph the way he’d soiled her. Neither could the bitterness that had crept into her smiles, the falseness. In those last years he knew things weren’t the same, knew that she didn’t listen to him anymore, even though he knew what was best, even though he wasn’t trying to “tell her what to do,” or “control” or “dominate,” but was just trying to remind her of the sweet girl he’d met all those years ago.

She’d hurt him - humiliated him - but he hadn’t been surprised. Oh he’d been surprised at her choice of men - a gluttonous failure - but the rest. He’d always sort of known. Maybe he’d been relieved, underneath. 

The third picture was Rhona. Intelligent, strong, but vulnerable. Crushed by that blithering idiot who according to useful village gossip, had never been able to keep it in his pants. Some men just can’t. And some men always get away with it, because some women are too forgiving. 

Too forgiving for their own good. 

Pierce put the photo back, a smile at his lips. Rhona was one of those women. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know any better. He had to remind himself of that. Stop blaming her. Stop seeing Tess in her place, smirking and laughing at him the way she’d started doing in those last years. 

Rhona was still good. It wasn’t too late. 

He’d make sure of it. 

00

Harriet had never wanted children. It hadn’t been a defect, or some failure as a woman. She just hadn’t. Maybe the pain of her Auntie Edna’s mistakes and regrets with her son had been some sort of guide, or wakeup call. Maybe all the harried, bitter, at times abusive parents she’d met while on the force - on both sides of the law. 

She didn’t know. She didn’t think about it much, really. It just was. 

She looked at Ashley, kneeling at his baby boy’s grave, and felt guilty that she was even more sure now. 

He’d begged her to take him to see Daniel “one last time.” He hadn’t needed to add, “before I forget him,” but he had anyway, and she’d burst into tears. She hadn’t meant to - she had to be strong for him, the man she loved, as a friend, still more than a friend, even if she had to deny that part of herself now. But she had, and he’d held her in his arms, the way he had before - before their worlds had fallen apart. 

“I’m so sorry…I don’t want to forget you,” Ashley whispered, running his fingers across the well-maintained headstone, staring at the freshly trimmed grass. “But your Mummy…she’ll never forget what you did for us. What you meant to us. I hope to God she doesn’t. Not like me. Please, please…”

Harriet stood behind Ashley, her body shaking as she clutched his shoulders, felt his sobbing back against her chest.

“None of us will. That’s a promise, kid.” 

Ashley turned around, smiling at her in gratitude. 

“I love you, Harriet.” 

She smiled at him, big and supportive, the way she always did.

Somehow inside she knew that was the last time he’d say those words. 


End file.
